


this is home (where the grass ain't green)

by zanykingmentality



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Night Terrors, Stylistically Lowercase, lots of skipping around through time, some sexual scenes but they're short and vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-13 01:12:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11173920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanykingmentality/pseuds/zanykingmentality
Summary: “it’s more than that.” steve raises a hand high above his head, as if reaching for the moon. he could touch it, diana thinks, if he just reached a little higher. “there’s a whole complicated story, but it’s been four years and i don’t know all the facts. it’s complicated.”“of course,” she says. “everything you say is.”





	this is home (where the grass ain't green)

**Author's Note:**

> i just watched this movie and let me just say holy crap i love it so much. so to celebrate my first full year of being on ao3 i wrote almost 2000 words of almost pure introspection. i'm trying out a new style so bear with me. 
> 
> unbeta-ed, but spellchecked, so forgive any small errors. enjoy~!

a night of restless hands and chapped lips charred from post-battle elation and dirt-crusted air was all they had. she breathes in the smoke of today, tomorrow, yesterday. a thousand todays that will never become tomorrows.

 

she has a half-brother in a man she killed, a man whose golden god-blood is on her hands. blood on her hands, peace at her toes, gripping to the cliff. she takes its fingers and pulls it up, to spread its light throughout the canyon that is humanity. it’s dark and dusty and grey but peace makes it light again.

 

(they can’t force the shadows from twisting at the edges. humanity is light but dark. there is always both.)

 

she tilts her head up to the clouds that hang low in the sky. debris falls like rain in her vision, the one that always plays behind her eyes when she looks up. red fire against grey clouds, a promise broken. an _i love you_ said too little too late. in her dreams he is alive, and he cups her cheeks to breathe against her lips.

 

diana has a home in him, and after everything, she wants it. she wants to go home.

 

themyscira is a place made to be impossible for invaders to find. one would have to be insanely lost or insanely crazy to find it, to even dream of finding it. that doesn’t stop her from searching. antiope used to tell her the world was a dangerous place, but with the right mindset, she could do anything. and when they lay on the ground in the dead of night, suspecting hippolyta’s presence would grace their training sessions, antiope would whisper stories and teachings she’d learned over thousands of years. amazons do not die easily.

 

“these are yours,” antiope said, silver gauntlets in her hands. “they are invincible and will protect you from any kind of harm.” diana runs her fingers along one of them, feels the cool metal against her skin.

 

“how?” she asks. she’s still young, and hasn’t learned to hold back her questions. it will be a long time before she does.

 

“because they are meant to protect you,” antiope answers. how else could she? but diana accepts it. the only lesson she has learned so far is that her duty as an amazon is to protect her home from invaders, to protect the world from itself. to pick out the shards of glass when the window breaks and piece them together, one by one. she has to be up to the task. she has to be ready. so she trains by moonlight with a woman who’s given her everything.

 

more than twenty years later, she finds a house, not a home, in a metropolitan city with buildings that reach to the sky. it reminds her of london, almost ― but even after twenty years, memories of that city are still too fresh. they appear in her dreams and follow her down the street, whispering of everything she failed to do, the people she failed to save.

 

she sees steve trevor in the downset curve of every man’s jaw, and it hurts more than it should. she lives as diana prince, private investigator, plus more jobs she can’t list in a single breath.

 

“are you okay?” the woman whose name she didn’t bother to learn asks from under her. the mattress shifts under their weight but all of that is background noise to diana. she feels this woman’s smooth skin under her fingers and remembers calloused hands that pulled triggers, hands that pushed her hair back and said _it’s not about deserve, it’s about what you believe._

 

“yes.” her accent sounds out of place in an american room, american flat, american city. their lips meet again and for a moment she almost forgets this isn’t the same as the last time she fell in love. it doesn’t last long. afterwards, diana finds her clothes and washes up in a bathroom that isn’t hers, thinking of a place far from here.

 

a hundred years is a long time, but she’s half-goddess and the years blend together. she doesn’t trust men in black or men in suits of brilliant blue, but she trusts herself and her fists. she hasn’t saved the world like this in a while, but she is wiser now, colder now. a hundred years can change a person, and how diana has changed.

 

each movement of a monster fueled by a power-hungry man brings more destruction into her life, and each hit makes it stronger. every time it hits something the sky flashes red with fire, and she faintly remembers a plane full of gas against a stormy sky. it’s not like the first time, but at the same time it’s exactly the same.

 

there is a picture in her hands, yellowed and browned with old age but preserved nonetheless. she runs her fingers over it and remembers the day, her first battle on the front, dust from the church in her hair and conviction in her heart. she remembers a call of _shield!_ and jumping high enough to believe she was flying, far enough to feel the wind against her face before she crashed into the bricks. she remembers cheers and screams and shouts and gunshots, and the feeling of her sword in her hands. she dreams in the space between tomorrow and today, and realizes her past does not define her.

 

she closes her eyes and reaches for him, for steve. she wonders if she tries hard enough, she can will him back to life. she can’t, but she can hope. _what should i do, steve? it’s lonely without you here. a hundred years and i still can’t move on._

 

_but i think i can now._

 

a picture gives her closure, gives her back the memories that had buried themselves in the back of her mind. she remembers sitting by a fire and wondering how someone could remain neutral, how they could watch and let people die and not choose a side. she understands, now. things are not always black and white. humans are complicated and their relationships even more so. she knows it better than anyone.

 

 _i have to go._ steve’s hands on hers, and though her ears are ringing she somehow knows what he’s saying. this is a memory, a dream. his hands slip from hers and she’s left gripping at the cold november air of the german high-command field. _i love you._

 

she wants to scream at him now, looking back. she wants to grab him by his above-average arms and kiss his above-average cheeks and tell him, _do you know how empty the years are without you?_ but he can’t ever know, because he’s gone and has been gone.

 

at night she writhes in her bed with the echoes of explosions and gunshots in her ears. she remembers starving children and their mothers begging for help she can’t give, not right now. she remembers the spear in her heart when she failed, killed the wrong man. when she realized men are dark with hate but light with love.

 

steve showed her that light. she gives it back to the world she has sworn to protect, but she doesn’t get attached. she will not have her heart broken again. she loves her world, but she does not love its people.

 

her mother used to tell her stories with a bad guy, the good guys, and a lesson that good always triumphs. diana learns the hard way it’s more complicated than that. the bad guys are not all bad, and the good guys are not all good. good and bad twist around each other and everything is a matter of perspective ― she calls them monsters, but they call her the same thing.

 

* * *

 

the boat sways beneath them, rocking back and forth with the lull of the sea. diana twists rope around her hands and pulls to lift the sail. themyscira is behind them, and she watches its hills fade into dark black fog. they lie next to each other on the ship and diana looks at him through the corner of her eye. his blue-blue eyes, bluer than any sky she’s ever seen, blink, restless. he can’t sleep, and neither can she.

 

“the war,” she says. “tell me about it. why is it complicated?”

 

“that’s a loaded question,” he says, but it’s not a response. she looks at him expectantly until he sighs. “you want a who-started-it answer, don’t you?”

 

she nods quickly. “yes. who attacked first? they must be the reason the war started.”

 

“it’s more than that.” steve raises a hand high above his head, as if reaching for the moon. he could touch it, diana thinks, if he just reached a little higher. “there’s a whole complicated story, but it’s been four years and i don’t know all the facts. it’s complicated.”

 

“of course,” she says. “everything you say is.”

 

she has nothing more to say as the boat rocks her to sleep. steve mumbles on, words like _home_ and _love_ and _peace_ , words she’d left behind in themyscira. it hadn’t occurred to her that they are for steve, too, that he left them behind, too.

 

their dancing is like the boat. men dance strangely, but diana has always been willing to learn. her smile is large enough to split her face until she meets his eyes, and it falters. his eyes are bluer than any sky she’s ever seen. his eyes remind her of the lakes in themyscira she would splash in when she was younger, when her life was easier and she’d known less. easier lives are always those that live in ignorance, and diana doesn’t miss being in the dark, but she misses living without a care in the world but for her indescribable need to learn, to train.

 

their light is the only one still on in the village. his mouth is on hers and she knows she will never forget this moment, these seconds that span out and make her human. she isn’t, she will never be human, but this is the closest she will ever get.

 

“i thought you didn’t sleep with girls,” she says, his breath warm against her neck, her stomach. her voice is breathy and high, a sound she didn’t know it could be.

 

“i do now,” he mumbles against her skin, and she’s too busy with the way his lips feel to respond.

 

* * *

 

she is stronger now. braver. she will not fail like she did before.

 

waking up is like a dream, and her nightmares are real ― but she can fix it, with time. she will be better, faster, greater than she was before. so she wouldn’t hurt again. so the world won’t feel her pain ever again. she hides late-night tears in her pillow and steps out onto french streets during the day. sometimes she thinks of a grave for someone like her, someone not-human but not quite alien either. someone just above human. she thinks she could’ve understood him, if they had more time. she doesn’t know if she wants that.

 

it’s not about deserve. it’s about what you believe. she understands that, now.

**Author's Note:**

> alr this is what i spent my entire day doing so if it's crap i'm so sorry 
> 
> but please leave a kudos and/or a comment those always make my day, and as always thank you so much for reading!


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